Penelope sleeps is an opera in essay form by Mette Edvardsen and Matteo Fargion. The idea for this piece developed out from their first collaboration oslo (2017), a piece by Mette Edvardsen in which Matteo Fargion was invited to write music for a choir. A setting of one long text, the music played an important role in the piece, an anti-choir dispersed amongst the audience and without a conductor. In Penelope sleeps the experimental approach and work with the format of the medium is still in question. The relation between voice and music, space and scale are important, but perhaps rather than alluding to operatic images we think of drawing lines to trace a horizon. Opera as a starting point, a long hidden and shared secret desire to tackle this medium, although perhaps motivated slightly differently for each of them. The text is written in prose form, like an essay. Essay from the French essayer, means to try, to attempt. Opera in Italian means to work, to labour. In this attempt to work a space opens up, bringing the two artists into unknown landscapes while at the same time allowing them to pursue their own artistic paths.

Penelope sleeps - an opera by Mette Edvardsen & Matteo Fargion
text: Mette Edvardsen
music: Matteo Fargion
performed by Mette Edvardsen, Matteo Fargion and Angela Hicks
light and technical support: Bruno Pocheron
subtitling and production support: Cillian O’Neill
production: Mette Edvardsen/Athome, Manyone
residency support: Black Box teater (Oslo), MDT (Stockholm), Kaaitheater (Brussels)
co-production: Kaaitheater & Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), BUDA (Kortrijk), Black Box teater (Oslo), Teaterhuset Avant Garden (Trondheim), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), centre chorégraphique national de Caen in Normandie (Caen), apap-Performing Europe 2020 - a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
supported by: Norsk Kulturråd, Norwegian Artistic Research Program – Oslo National Academy of the Arts
special thanks to: Melissa Davis

PERFORMANCES:
rimi/ imir scenekunst (Stavanger) 2 December 2021
Dance House (Melbourne) 14, 15 March 2020
Carriageworks (Sydney) 10, 11 March 2020
Meteor, BIT (Bergen) 17, 18 October 2019
Sur les bords #1, T2G-CDN (Gennevilliers) 4 October 2019
Ultima & Black Box teater (Oslo) 13, 14 September
Almost Summer, BUDA (Kortrijk) 23 June 2019
Stamsund Internasjonale Teaterfestival (Stamsund) 30 May 2019
Wiener Festwochen (Vienna) 17, 18 May 2019
Kunstenfestivaldesarts & Kaaitheater (Brussels) 10, 11, 12, 14 May 2019